The Mind Behind It

Prof. Michael Drane, a psychotherapist and host of the UPC (Unpopular Culture) podcast talks to us about what drives a serial killer to do what they do, his take on cults and a brief insight into the Luka Magnotta case featured on the Netflix documentary 'Don't f*** with Cats'.

Huda and Sahil discuss some of the recent humanitarian crises occurring throughout the world and how one can help. They analyse the deathly second wave of COVID-19 in India, Uighur situation in China and list out NGO's and charities that one can contribute to from anywhere in the world.

This week Sahil and Huda say their goodbyes and thank yous in their final episode. But before they do, they punch out a few more episodes that weren’t released. Their guests for these are:

Tasha Jackson, MFT who has been practicing psychotherapy for over 16 years and has her own clinic in San Francisco, California. She has a diverse clientele ranging from drag queens to CEOs. Tasha Jackson MA has been widely published in magazines and academic journals. She has done a TED talk ‘Can We Not Let Our Breakups Break Us’ and released a book ‘Master Dater’ and is internationally recognised as the first to advocate for the LGBTQ community and was one of the first US-based therapists to openly champion gay parenting. In our interview with Tasha, we discuss all things relationships – she integrates different techniques to meet her client’s individual needs and truly understands intuitively the differences between people so not to try and fit them into a theoretical box. She has been trained under both traditional and more modern progressive theories and typically leans on Control-Mastery, Psychodynamic, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Structural Family Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Head to her page to find out more: https://www.tashajackson.com/

Professor Hal Herzog of Western Carolina University; he has been investigating the complex psychology of our interactions with other species for three decades. His research interests include the impact of pets on human health and well-being, attitudes towards the use of animals, and the evolution of pet-keeping. He has published more than 100 research articles for news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Wired, New Scientist, and Time Magazine. He is the author of the book ‘Some, We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard To Think Straight About Animals’ which is the one we primarily discuss in this interview. Check him out at: http://halherzog.com/

Professor Constantine Sandis of University of Hertfordshire is a professor of Philosophy and co-founder of Lex Academic. Constantine has published multiple articles and written plenty of books, one that we mention in this particular interview is a book titled ‘The Things We Do And Why We Do Them’. His philosophical curiosities primarily focus on the philosophy of action, moral psychology, and interpersonal understanding. His studies and theories in the psychology of philosophy is advanced by Philosophers Hume, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein. Current projects that Professor Constantine is working on is a collaboration on AI Intelligibility with Abigail Sellen at Microsoft Research which we touch on in this interview, and a book on gender with his colleague Danièle Moyal-Sharrock. To know more and read about his amazing work head to: https://www.constantinesandis.com/

Sahil and Huda take the time to individually thank their team members, who without them none of this would have been made possible:

Pedro Arbelaez (@pedro_arbelaez) their amazing graphic designer from Colombia that invented the branding for Humane Productions and has worked closely, but autonomously to create dynamic and interesting covers for the episodes.

Chris Foreman (@swampshackstudios) the co-founder of SwampShack Studios in New Zealand, is the audio engineer who makes the episodes sound engaging and interesting by adding music in the background and gets creative with each episode.

David Boland (@thedavidboland) from Ireland is the editor of the podcasts, he ensures that all the interviews have had the fat trimmed and all the very innapropriate jokes Sahil makes are removed, so that the episodes are streamlined for the audience.

And finally, they thank you, the listeners. For showing your support and taking the time out of your day to fill your ears and minds with their voices. Thanks to all the guests who have taken their time out of their busy lives to sit and speak about their work and have engaging conversations.

They will be back, in another way, but in the meantime, follow them on @humane.productions to keep in touch.

Sahil and Huda speak with Dr. George Church, a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His pioneering work has contributed to the development of DNA sequencing and genome engineering technologies. He has also had an important role in the launch of CRISPR technology, including a landmark paper in 2013 that marked one of the first demonstrations of CRISPR genome editing in human cells.

George speaks about his early interest in genetics through his physician uncle, his battle with narcolepsy as a child and his first interaction with CRISPR technology. He also goes into an in-depth layman's explanation of the process involved with gene editing, IVF babies and his lab's work at the Wyss Institute in developing vegan meats for a sustainable feature.

Finally, he gives us an insight into the ethics involved with CRISPR/designer babies, what it means for future research and interestingly how pigs could be used ethically for organ transplants in humans in the future.

Sahil and Huda sit down virtually with Novalee Wilder, Los Angeles based Numerologist and writer of the book 'A little bit of numerology'.

In this episode, we discuss the basics of numerology, your date of birth and it's significance, how a name change has the potential to change your life and the differences between Pythagorean and Chaldean Numerology. Novalee also gives some helpful advice on how to navigate your mental health using numerology and does a quick reading for our two hosts.

To learn more about Novalee and her work head over to her website: https://www.novaleewilder.com/

Script for the hearing impaired is allocated to this for all listeners/readers to enjoy.